Window
by D.K. Archer
Summary: Todd&Kurt, rated for swearing and sexual references.  Regrets sink in fast.


Window

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I'm going to hell.

The words had been welling up inside of him like a fresh cancer, bulbous and malignant, settling somewhere between his collar bones and festering there. He was going to hell. He'd really done it. He'd known, while he'd touched that skin, while he'd kissed that horrible mouth, that he was condemning himself but somehow he hadn't been able to stop, had cared, but hadn't cared enough. There had been a resignation, while he'd done it, an acknowledgment that yes, this was wrong, but if he'd only touch him there, if he'd only kiss his throat like that, it was worth it, it was worth all the wrath of heaven and hell if he just wouldn't stop. Of course, there had been time, then. A window before damnation, an emergency exit, should he choose to take it.

He hadn't taken it.

Kurt was on his knees in the Brotherhood house, the carpet thick and filthy against his fur, a Snickers wrapper and the cover of an old Variations magazine sticking to his knees. His palms were spread against the ugly, ruined wallpaper of Todd's room, blue against a flower pattern that had faded to grey, sweat from the hot summer evening leaving hand prints on the wall, sticky and identifying. Todd was breathing against his ear, breath reeking of stale cigarettes and unclean teeth and something underneath, something thick and amphibious. He was panting. Todd's hand, still reached around Kurt's belly, smearing Kurt's own spend into his fur, slid up slowly, pushing all the damp fur the wrong way, making Kurt grit his teeth. He was still pressed against his back, all bones and angles and slick skin that hadn't been washed since the start of summer. Kurt, thigh's trembling to support him, panted against the back of his hands and slumped, weighing his new situation carefully.

There were some tests, in life, that you failed. Some were more important than others.

Kurt had failed.

He felt Todd's lips against his shoulder. A kiss. Then Todd was gone, standing up and seeking out his jeans, pulling a smashed soft pack of cigarettes out of the pocket, straightening one and lighting it with a stolen Zippo that only had three more days worth of fuel inside it. Kurt shifted, turning so his back was to the wall, bringing his knees up close to his chest and holding them, staring at the other boy. Todd was standing in front of the window, open to the sticky burning summer in case a wind should blow, letting in the sounds of passing cars and tired birds. Todd was all bones, like a dead bird, or a pharaoh, slouching and appraising him with yellow eyes. The cigarette burned hot between his lips, streaming smoke into his eyes and in his nose, still wearing the black bracers but only that. There were marks, on his shoulders, were Kurt had grabbed him too hard. Light bruising on his mouth where Kurt had kissed him. Todd looked stringy, hard, and weak.

He wasn't weak.

"Whats the matter?" Todd said, jerking his chin towards him.

Kurt didn't answer for a moment. Todd held the cigarette wrong, between his thumb and forefinger, and dragged from it. He looked unsteady. Taught.

"Have you ever done that before?" Kurt asked, tail wrapping slowly around his feet, holding him tighter in place.

Todd looked down. And away. "It fucking matter?"

Kurt was quiet.

Todd took a drag. "Have you?"

"No." Kurt said immediately, end of his tail twitching. "With anyone."

Todd looked at him, and away. Back at the window. "Yeah. Well…"

"Yeah." Kurt said.

Silence.

Kurt's eyes vacated briefly. His hand went to his throat. The tiny gold cross around his neck bit sharply into his palm as he held it too hard, but not hard enough.

Todd scratched the back of his neck. A nervous gesture. The cigarette disappeared into his mouth and then bap, up in went onto the ceiling, the butt stuck up with twenty others, glued to the plaster with slime. Todd started putting on his jeans. He wasn't looking at Kurt. Kurt was trying not to look at him.

Kurt had tried not to be this. There had been girls. Girls and Amanda and he had loved them so hard, so desperately, fire burning but never touching him, not where it counted. Todd had hit him someplace else, the reptile brain that didn't need permission, the reptile brain that lay so quiet so often, never murmuring when he'd been kissing her, when she'd let him touch her breasts or slide a hand underneath her shirt, that had never put up a fight when she'd told him to stop and he'd simply stopped. That reptile brain that was so hard to ignore, not when it saw what it wanted and it knew what it wanted and that wasn't the soft curves of Amanda's hips, the firm roundness of her breast, the slope of her belly and the gentle lines of her thighs.

Todd wasn't even his friend.

Todd had kissed him in the alley, stuck his knee between Kurt's thighs, and Kurt had gawped like a landed fish. Her kiss had never done that. Her kiss had never made his gut tighten, his pulse rise, his lungs seem too small. Her kiss had never done that.

Todd had been all teeth and tongue and fire, down his throat.

Kurt looked back at him as Todd buttoned his jeans, bending to fetch his t-shirt, seeing his ribs shifting underneath the skin. Todd didn't look at him. Kurt hadn't moved. He just sat, staring, numb somehow where the horror should be, where the screaming blinding horror of hell should be, mouth stuck tight. Todd cast him a quiet glance.

Stop looking at me.

"So, you…uh…" Todd tried, looking like he wanted another cigarette. "You going right back home?"

Kurt blinked slowly. "Do you want me to?"

"Well, uh, I dunno, I mean, nobody's getting home for another three hours, I though maybe you could hang for a little bit. Watch tv or something…." It sounded lame, even in his ears. Todd trailed off and looked up at the ceiling. Lost.

Kurt bit his lip with a tiny, sharp fang. The skin broke where it had broken a hundred times before. There was no blood left to bleed in that spot. "Okay." He said slowly, trying it out.

Todd looked at him, surprised. For a moment, he started to grin. But he caught it, and smothered it.

"Cool." He said.

Kurt unfolded slowly, and looked for his jeans. Outside, cars wavered by in ripples of new heat, the grass died quietly on the lawn. Kurt got dressed, and they went down to watch TV.


End file.
